One of the most familiar faces in basketball television is preparing to step away. Ernie Johnson, whose run as host of “Inside the NBA” now spans 37 seasons, said on Wednesday that the 2026-27 campaign, only a week old, will be his last behind the studio desk.
The 70-year-old made the announcement in a video of about two and a half minutes posted to social media. Nobody pushed him, he insisted; the choice was his alone. “It’s just time,” he said.
The reason he gave lies off camera. Johnson has always prided himself on long daily preparation and said he had promised himself to stop once that work felt more like a burden than a pleasure. After nearly four decades, he concluded that moment had come.
Health also played a part. For almost two years his heart has given him trouble, and a bypass operation followed 14 months ago. He is in good shape now, he stressed, and no doctor told him to quit, but the experience made family time a higher priority.
Television will not lose him entirely, though. Johnson will keep hosting March Madness coverage for TNT and CBS, and he has set up a new production outfit, 32 Bow Ties, a nod to his trademark neckwear, to tell uplifting sports stories.
The departure could reshape the show well beyond its host. Back in September, his desk partner Charles Barkley, who shares the set with Kenny Smith and Shaquille O’Neal, told a podcast the two of them were “a package deal”.
Johnson closed with thanks to viewers for their loyalty and support, calling the moment “a turning of the page” rather than an ending. Then he went back to work that same night.
